2018: YEAR OF THE PRICKLE

Posted on 26 October 2018

I'm great with faces and good with names, but I am absolutely appalling with dates. I have detailed memories from as far back as my Playcentre days, but other than the birth of my children, I cannot connect them with specific dates to save myself. I can’t even tell you today’s date, and coming up with the current month feels like a stab in the dark.

Until now, there has been one exception to this dismal recall-record: 2003.

I will always be able to connect memories with 2003 because, for me, it was a prickly-popply, life-changing year, from start to finish. It was the year I left the person I’d been with since I was 20 (which felt like losing an arm), the year I left a job that was sucking me dry, the year I travelled alone through Thailand, the year I returned to New Zealand after 5 years living in the UK, the year I was diagnosed with cancer, the year my stopover in NZ became a ‘stay put’, and the year I experienced depression more intensely than I ever had before.

It was also the year I did a solo roady around the bottom of the South Island, in the middle of winter, and eventually arrived in a spectacularly out-of-the-way part of the world (my favourite kind of place) on the night of a 7.2 earthquake.

This was a shake-up call after a wake-up call, and I finally got the message!! Life changed in ways I could never have imagined, and I haven't looked back since; except with fond memories (and a few desperately sad ones), which, of course, I can’t connect with a date!

But now here I am, 15 years later, racing towards the end of another year that will be etched in my mind forever. I don’t know about you, but for some of my nearest and dearest — my most kindred people, my through-thick-and-thin people, my laugh-until-you-cry-and-cry-until-you-laugh people — 2018 has been PRICKLY TO THE MAX.

There has been life-shattering grief, shocking diagnoses — cancer has raised its ugly head in my family again — physical suffering, and emotional exhaustion. But there has also been mind-blowing strength, inspirational resilience, the bravest laughter you've ever heard, enormous acts of kindness, and love — so much love.

So 2018 might be the YEAR OF THE PRICKLE, but it's also the year of many life-affirming POPs that have blossomed among the prickles and from the prickles.

I've been pretty quiet this year, as my attention has been elsewhere, but I'm looking forward to seeing out the remainder of the year in POP-tastic style.

So on with the news!

NEW PRICKLE AND POP ART PRINTS

I am thrilled to announce that EIGHT new art prints are finally available to purchase from the Prickle and POP online shop, just in time for your Christmas shopping! Thank you for your patience. If there are any other designs you have seen and loved that are not yet available to purchase as a print, please let me know, so I can pour some love into them immediately and POP them in the shop!

In honour of the incredible people in my life who have blossomed despite the prickles life has thrown them this year, Thistle Flower Garden is now available as an art print, too.

NEW STOCKISTS

I'd like to extend a big, warm THANK YOU to the stores and galleries that continue to stock Prickle and POP goods, and a big, warm WELCOME to the stockists who have recently joined the fam. They are full of good stuff and they are full of good people. I love them and I think you will, too:

If you are interested in stocking Prickle and POP goodies in your store, or you would like to recommend a store near you, please get in touch. I would love hear from you!

NEW PRODUCT SNEAK PREVIEW

Looky what's on my fridge!!

Stockists have been requesting more PerimenopART products for some time now, so after researching lots of different options, I will soon be testing the market with a selection of PerimenopART Fridge Magnets!

I'm currently ironing out some printing issues, in order to deliver the Made in NZ high-quality you can always expect from us, and then these giggles will be ready for your fridge (or any other magnetic surfaces in your home or office). The test range will be available from Shopology, in the Christchurch Arts Centre, and from the Prickle and POP online shop. And if they're a success, we will branch out from there!

I will keep you posted, and in the meantime, I'd love to hear your thoughts about this new product.

2019: YEAR OF THE POP

At the beginning of the year, I told anyone who would listen that I had a feeling 2018 was going to be a BIG year. I felt it with every intuitive bone in my body. I was unsettled, I lost my creative mojo, and I had trips back and forth to the doctor — for fatigue and other unexplainable symptoms. In hindsight, I know, I just KNOW, that I was picking up on shit that was about to hit the fan. Call me crazy, but I know I am right; I've experienced it before.

Now I'm putting it out there that 2019 is going to be another BIG year, but in a popply way, not a prickly way! My creative mojo is back; ideas are, once again, POPPING up, left, right and centre; I have energy for projects that have been on the back-burner for too long; and I'm generally in a make-things-happen kind of mood.

And things are HAPPENING, alright! After months and months of discussions, research and planning, a DREAM is coming true!

For as long as we have been together, my husband and I have talked about returning to Europe together one day, with our children, to experience the magic of some of our favourite destinations through their eyes, and to explore new places as a family.

I am pinch-myself-excited to say that, as of TODAY, our marvellous adventure is entirely CONFIRMED! So in August next year, I will be gathering inspiration for Prickle and POP — and life in general! — during a 9-week exploration of Singapore, Greece, Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia, Venice, Barcelona and Hong Kong (or King Kong, as my youngest calls it).

Please forgive me as I indulge in my excitement and share a few photos of places I can barely believe we will be visiting: